Fire TV Stick to support Windows 8.1 Miracast

When Amazon added display mirroring support via Miracast to the Fire TV with the 51.1.4.0 software update, they seemed to only focus on making the new feature compatible with Android devices. Users of Windows 8.1, which supports Miracast by default, were disappointed to find the Fire TV and Fire TV Stick couldn’t mirror Windows correctly. Sharp eyed reddit user FlyEaglesFly04 has spotted an update to the Fire TV Stick’s product page that should make Windows users happy. Amazon has recently added “Windows 8.1 coming soon” to the miracast feature row in the Fire TV Stick’s comparison chart. This is a good indicator that the next Fire TV Stick update should resolve issues with mircast and make it compatible with Windows 8.1’s native support. Even though there’s no mention of mircast or Windows on the Fire TV’s product page, it’s safe to assume the Fire TV will also gain Windows miracast compatibility with its next software update. Once the Fire TV Stick becomes compatible with Windows 8.1 miracast mirroring, it should drive the last nail into the coffin of Microsoft’s ridiculously overpriced Wireless Display Adapter and turn the Fire TV Stick into one of the most versatile options for Windows mirroring.

5 comments

–the specification is only available on payment of a high amount of money.
–hardware support is barely available, the only working chip in February 2014 was Intels 7260-WLAN-Chip.
–he considers the technology “horrible”. Filters are sent which define properties of the hardware, e.g. the screen resolution. This boils down to an enormous amount of data sent which makes its challenging to find the correct peering device. IPv4 including DHCP is used as internet protocol, not the new IPv6. To transfer contents the sender and receiver device should be done, but sometimes this happens spontaneously without a possibility to change it afterwards. The streaming is controlled via the RTSP. The disadvantage is that the receiver explicitely needs to request the data transfer from the sender – instead of the sender just starting the transfer.

Unfortunately, Miracast support it Windows 8.1 requires certain hardware. However, even certified devices do not work consistently. I have tried this on many different machines with varying degrees of success. Let’s hope this works well!